


in never-ending twilight

by onlytwocaptains



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, i took everything i knew about angels and put a big old X over it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:29:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23977489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlytwocaptains/pseuds/onlytwocaptains
Summary: jihoon, an angel, amongst getting comfortable with all other earthly customs, goes through the immense experience of love
Relationships: Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi/Lee Jihoon | Woozi
Comments: 5
Kudos: 57





	in never-ending twilight

_Soonyoung has a crush_ , Jeonghan said. _A crush on you._

Jihoon is, hypothetically speaking, elated. Hypothetically because that’s how it has to be. Hypothetical. If it was realistic it wouldn’t work out. The reality would be a moral affront.

So, hypothetically speaking, he’s overjoyed. Hypothetically he’s more than excited to show up to he and Soonyoung’s shared ethics class where he’ll hypothetically flaunt his ethereal beauty to the only boy he’s ever done it for. Ironic, really, that it’s happening in an ethics class. But it’s all good, as he’s established, it’s just hypothetical.

To put things simply, Jihoon is an angel. To put things complicated, he came to Earth, for reasons he doesn’t fully understand himself, for the rest of his celestial life. It’s often thought that angels live forever after death. They move into this haven run by God and... well, after that isn’t really thought of. Watch over their loved ones? But Jihoon has not died. He will, all angels do—Heaven would simply be crowded otherwise. Jihoon was born an angel. He used to have wings—not given to him by the ring of some bell, he can tell you that—but they were taken when he arrived.

The ripe age of eighteen. That’s when he arrived. He decided the year prior he would prefer to be on Earth. The place where things known as humans—which he had a small infatuation for at the time—were not aware of their consumption and would eventually run themselves into the ground. Maybe he liked the idea of racing the clock. The idea of slowly watching a civilization fall. An entire world. But he hadn’t taken into account that he’d be falling with it. He’ll fall before it, hopefully. At least that’s what Jeonghan told him.

Jeonghan is his guardian. Angel guardian if you have a dry sense of humor. He was only a year older when he had fed into Jihoon’s idea. “You only lose 100 years, it’s not that big of a deal,” he had said. So instead of living until he was 200, give or take a few years, he’d live until he was 100, give or take a few years. “Oh, and your wings,” he’d added once they had safely flown to the apartment they’d be starting their new life in. Almost on cue they disappeared into beautiful specs of light. Like the star filled sky right in front of his eyes. Jeonghan is a perfect example of the opposite of an angel. His just above the shoulder black hair, sharp facial features, thin and lanky frame. All laced with more deceit than what any average angel has. He claims that it gives him character. “Oddly enough, not your halo.”

Angels are different from humans. They might look similar but they’re different. Every angel has a family. Families don’t rely as heavily on each other; he could have left for Earth at the age of 7 if he wanted. Every angel gets hurt. Depending on how bad it is it heals a great deal faster than it does on Earth. Every angel falls in love. It is not as primal as the way evolved homo-sapiens do, though. It’s pure. Fills their eyes with more color. Makes their skin more sensitive to touch. Exposes the rings of their bark. Makes them fall harder.

Jihoon has learned all these things the hard way.

He attends some high end, arts focused college. He tried his best in primary and secondary school, but they all bored him. But angels, as the lore goes, are kind. Therefore, he got to choose the school he would get into. He’s interested in music—producing it, writing it, making it. An angel’s choir, as the saying goes. Angelic voices. He intends on putting his to use.

He’s learned quickly the ridiculous customs of Earth. Piles of mandatory homework, unfair wages, lack of respect for personal privacy, mistreatment in the court of law, and the thing that has gotten him in the worst moral stupor so far, unnecessary classes. That’s where ethics comes into play. His options for the credit requirement were zugzwang. He picked the best of the worst. He figured as an angel, said to be one of the most precious and holy creatures next to God himself, he would be able to pass the class with practiced ease. He had not expected to have that assumption pulled from under him like a rug.

#

It was not the first day, Soonyoung hadn’t shown up on the first day. Jihoon had considered doing the same the next week. But he hadn’t. Why hadn’t he.

It was not even the first week. Jihoon, not an angel or people person, was too worried about socializing. Not revealing this big secret he had. He didn’t come up with some elaborate backstory about his childhood. Jeonghan told him to just tell others that he was an orphan. People don’t usually push the topic of being an orphan. People did not include Lee Seokmin, apparently.

Seokmin isn’t not human, Jihoon can tell that, but he isn’t. Jihoon considers Seokmin the definition of ethical, maybe even too ethical. When Jihoon told him he had been an orphan, unlike everyone else that had been in the conversation that decided to drop the topic there, Seokmin asked him where he’d grown up. Who watched over him? If he was well enough accustomed to Seoul’s unforgiving cold. That day was painted with verisimilar information that Seokmin happily admired.

Jihoon eventually grew fond of him; accepting his garrulous personality, cherry picking the things he said about himself, and buying him the occasional meat stick. Seokmin on the other hand introduced him to coffee. Water mixed with ground beans and, from what he’s said about “specials,” anything sugary and soluble. Jihoon appreciated its ability to ward off drowsiness.

That second week there was a simple, one day instruction. Sit next to someone you’ve never talked to before. He’d never realized how much he relied on Seokmin’s presence in this class until that day. Seokmin, the traitor, decided to sit two tables away. That left a cold, open seat next to Jihoon. He didn’t try and make eye contact with someone that would sit next to him just to save his pride. He did not ask the universe that the seat stay empty so he could relax and set his bag there, maybe pull the seat closer to drape his arm along the back. He sat with his eyes on his paper and waited for whatever to happen, simply happen. He’s learned from the biographies he’s checked out from the library that it isn’t worth it. It’s funny how he, an actual angel, thought of this stranger that’s decided to sit next to him as something more celestial than himself. Something to be worshiped.

“Kwon Soonyoung,” he said with this smile that twisted his face into something ridiculous. Humorous. Intriguing.

“Lee Jihoon.”

It felt preposterous. Soonyoung had turned Jihoon to fog. One strong exhale and he’d float away. Be carried with the wind and freed from the constant hum of his chest. One strong inhale and he’d have him trapped. Jihoon was his to chew up and spit out.

Soonyoung inhaled. And Jihoon expected to be chewed but it never came. The fog only spread. Then thickened until it completed all states of matter. Gas, liquid, solid. A malleable solid that bends at Soonyoung’s will. Luckily, Soonyoung had not asked as much as Seokmin. He was human. Unbelievably human.

#

Jihoon confines in Jeonghan. They’ve known each other since they were in diapers, Jeonghan’s ten times wiser, and he knows how to keep a secret. But when Soonyoung showed up to the restaurant he and Jeonghan visit every once in a while for dinner saying that Jeonghan invited him, Jihoon hadn’t had a good feeling.

He had been nothing but pliant. His practically obsequious personality rendered Jeonghan speechless. Soonyoung steal a piece of his meat? Jihoon sent him a half-hearted glare. Soonyoung want him to try something? Jihoon’s mouth dropped open on command. Soonyoung being his touchy, irksome self and wrapping his arms around Jihoon? His perfunctory shove could hardly be classified as a push. Jeonghan had laughed him out the door when they got home, sharp smile growing mischievous when he childishly asked: “Guess what?”

“What?” Jihoon supplied, playing along. It was too late to save face.

“I asked Soonyoung and he said he has a crush,” his voice jocular. Jihoon does not allow him the satisfaction of a reaction.

He had expected to be chewed up and spit out. This is the spitting out.

“A crush on you,” he singsongs.

Jihoon would call it ribald. He breaths through his teeth, a psh sound replacing the thousands of words running through his head. He walks to his room; stone face a funny contrast to the erratic beating of his heart. Jeonghan laughs him into that too.

It isn’t allowed, Jihoon reminds himself. Having friends, that’s fine. Stealing, you can get away with a slap on the wrist. Murder, well sometimes it’s ok to commit a crime. Dating a human? The only person to get away with that hadn’t actually gotten away with it. They’ve been MIA for as long as the rule has been in place. The story is esoteric, but Jeonghan’s heard that it was a lot like trying to get a pirate to tell you where he buried his treasure. Except there was no map and the pirate would rather die than speak.

But hypothetically? Well that doesn’t do harm to anyone. This potential relationship is just an aspiration. The equivalent to a young child that has the dream to live on Saturn. World peace. Winning the lottery.

#

“Seokmin said he won’t forgive you if you choose me as a partner for this project. It’s bad enough you let me take his spot,” Soonyoung says when Jihoon slides into his seat.

His hammering chest made it difficult to arrive to class on time. He glances back at Seokmin and the latter gratuitously turns his head and crosses his arms.

“Do you want me to work with him?” Jihoon asks.

Soonyoung shrugs, an unreadable simper on his face.

“Do you want to work together?” he tries.

“Kind of,” Soonyoung whispers. The kind of whisper that some would consider much louder than a shout.

“Ok,” he whispers back. The small smile on Soonyoung’s face the rest of the class vindicates him completely.

It’s when they’re walking into Jihoon’s quiet apartment to begin their project that he realizes, quite gravely, that he’s doomed. He is always been accompanied by another person in Soonyoung’s presence and without Jeonghan to tease him into embarrassment Jihoon feels as though he’ll drive himself mad trying to shake the intimate thoughts from his mind. They decide to sit on his bed, since his desk only has one chair and it would be more comfortable, and Soonyoung has this careful look in his eyes that makes Jihoon want to devour him.

“I was angry with how broad the professor made the topic at first, but I think it’ll be fairly easy. Right?”

Jihoon instead hears something about how he’ll be able to forbear leaning just the breath away to kiss him firmly and admit his feelings. “No,” he whispers. 

Soonyoung laughs politely. “Don’t be so pessimistic! You’re quite smart.” 

Jihoon blushes wildly. “Oh, no, I’m not.” he says quickly. “I’m just a⸺bookworm, as you’d say.”

“I was surprised you chose to work with me,” Soonyoung continues, ignoring his protest.

Jihoon feels dizzy with emotion at the remark. “Well, I quite—” he turns red realizing what he’s about to admit. “—I quite like you.”

He chooses not to admit to himself that he meant it exactly as it sounds. It was something to say amongst friends—he cannot control how Soonyoung interprets it.

“You do?” he asks quietly and wonder-struck and—intimate.

Jihoon does not hide the way he looks directly at his lips. “Quite.”

It’s like a star imploding on itself, Jihoon thinks. He’d wanted this so terribly, but he knows that he shouldn’t. An almost imperceptible sway brings them closer together. They hold matching wild smiles and Jihoon feels as if his heart will jump out of his chest but there’s something in the back of his mind that prevents him.

“Wait!” Jihoon exclaims, face reluctantly jerking away from Soonyoung’s. “I—can’t.”

Jihoon has always been shrewd, always the one to offer his two cents of hesitation when it comes to flout going against moral matters, but with this mortal being—true mortal being—sat in front of him with his eyebrows knitted in confusion and eyes wide with worry, he can’t be bothered to consider anything but his own desire. The way his cheeks heat and his lips twitch and his eyes take perilous glances down at the other’s slightly parted mouth.

“I’m an angel,” Jihoon recollects. Throwing caution to the sharks that have manifested from his excessive yearning.

“As in..?” Soonyoung inquires, shoulders drooping with relief. When Jihoon gives him a confused stare he tries again. “As in what? You’re abstinent?”

“What? No!”

“Oh, are you super religious then? Like, the whole ‘God hates gays’ thing?”

Jihoon sputters, disapprovingly slapping Soonyoung’s arm. “Are you daft?”

“No?” he says, uncertain. “Wait, yes…”

“Clearly,” Jihoon breaths, exasperated. “I’m an actual angel. A heavenly being.'' He retracts into himself again when Soonyoung’s expression turns enigmatic. “Though some perquisites have been revoked subsequent to flying down to Earth.”

“What?” Soonyoung asks, looking Jihoon up and down as a parent would trying to decipher a young child’s drawing. “What did you just say?”

Jihoon repeats himself, everything coming out a pitch higher than before, and when Soonyoung’s expression ceases to change he continues. “Like tens of years of my life, my wings—” he hesitates with thought for a moment, “—my wounds don’t heal as quickly but perhaps that’s atmospherical.”

“All of those things?” Soonyoung asks, as if the list was nondescript.

Jihoon, caught up in wondering why the papercut he’d got the other day still hasn’t healed despite it only taking seconds for something so miniscule to resolve in heaven, nods. “I’m virtually human!”

“And in what ways are you not?”

“Well, I still possess my halo.” Jihoon stitches his fingers together while he considers the question further, trying to think of all the other things that may be considered abnormal. “I, uh, suppose I do have this thing I do. Ethereal beauty—as you may be familiar with—but you’re the only to have seen it.” His cheeks burn with embarrassment and he finishes in a hurry. “Among other things that aren’t coming to mind. Regardless, they’re trivial.”

“Show me,” Soonyoung requests, voice hesitant. “The halo.”

“Oh—” Jihoon looks to the closet that it’s in and thoughts of everything he hurriedly stuffed in it spilling out like a collapsing bookcase run through his mind. “You’ll have to turn away,” he concludes.

“Why?” Soonyoung asks, tone a weird mix of dubious and amused. Nevertheless, turning the other direction.

“It’s a secret.” Jihoon pushes himself off the bed and slowly makes his way to the closet, thinking of the best way to do this with minimal damage. He takes a breath, deciding that he’ll attempt something similar to quickly pulling the tablecloth from underneath a set table. He sighs heavily, preparing his nervous pulse.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, just as he’s given himself enough of a pep talk to feel capable of completing the task, Soonyoung turns his head, just barely, and says: “Defusing a bomb back there?”

“Don’t be so facetious,” Jihoon scolds. Once again he prepares himself, accompanied by Soonyoung’s snickering, and he successfully snatches the shoe box that his halo is held in; only allowing a few shirts that he keeps forgetting to iron to spill out. He hurriedly picks them up to drape on the back of his desk chair. “OK, you can look.”

Soonyoung promptly whips around his head, eyes pulled with joy, the bridge of his nose scrunched with glee. “All that for a little box?”

Jihoon doesn’t bother fueling his hilarity with a glare and instead sits down next to him. He opens the box slowly and is relieved to see that nothing has happened to it in his frenzy of throwing whatever there was space for in the closet. The moment Jihoon’s fingers hover near the halo it shines like the diamond ring of an eclipse, effect nearly too much to bear but too beautiful to look away. He taps it twice before sliding his finger a few centimeters across the rim and watching it float up, up, over his head with practiced ease.

“It’s like putting on a new earring,” Jihoon states sheepishly, “I’ve no clue as to what it looks like until I get hold of a mirror.” The small twinkle that resonates—a sound caused by inactivity—is the only noise after that. Soonyoung’s eyes are wide, eyebrows lifted as high as they can go, and the rest of his face simply hangs; awestruck.

“This has to be fake,” Soonyoung whispers, reaching out to touch the ring only for it to float away from him. Jihoon can feel its incandescent energy radiate onto Soonyoung’s skin and lean away. He tries again, persistently moving his hand away and then quickly darting it back, similar to the way a poisonous snake will attack a predator.

“You can’t touch it,” Jihoon conciliates. “Only I can.”

Soonyoung huffs, previous disbelieving and solemn attitude being replaced by the one Jihoon has spent hours admiring simply because it’s so jocular and whole-hearted. “Why not?” he bewails.

“Angels rarely touch each other’s halos. I doubt you, a lowly mortal, would be able to even graze it.” Jihoon cannot help the chortle that bubbles out his chest when Soonyoung whines, he can feel the halo brighten with every breath of laughter. 

“You showed me this now, you must realize that I’ll have hundreds of questions.” Soonyoung states, crossing both his legs and arms.

“In due time.”

“You’re so cryptic. . .” he says, eyes now pulling away from the floating ring to look at Jihoon’s face. “And you’re just going to tell me all these things? Just like that?”

Jihoon nods. “I’d really rather not doubt your honesty the same way you did mine.”

Soonyoung makes a face, clearly displeased with what Jihoon’s just said. “So why can’t you tell me now?”

“I’m unsure your guileless human mind can manage all the information at once.”

Again Soonyoung makes a face, brows furrowed, lips protruding, hand rested against his chest in an exaggerated gesture of offence. “You’re insulting me so much but it’s in such an elegant way I can’t stay angry.”

“My point exactly,” Jihoon says, reaching up to deactivate the halo and set it back in the box.

“When do you ever use that?” Soonyoung asks, eyes glowing on their own as he watches Jihoon repeat the same thing he did previously to turn it on in the opposite direction to turn it off. As if an amusing afterthought he adds, with senseless excitement, “Will you dress as an angel for Halloween?”

Jihoon scoffs. “Yes, I’d blunder my enjoyable, nascent life on Earth for something as dissolute as a child’s holiday.” Soonyoung is noticeably amused with Jihoon’s sarcastic tone. “These, now, are more so considered surreptitious earmarks.” He does not have to look in the other’s general direction to know that he hadn’t caught what he just said. “A homely keepsake only meant for my knowledge.”

Soonyoung makes a noise of ascent, completely relaxing—or unfolding, rather—his body as Jihoon sets the box on his desk and then ambles back to the bed. “Why do you speak like that? Like a character from Shakespeare.”

“Well, firstly, Shakespeare is the name of the author, not a book, or any of his works for that matter. Secondly, I do not. They say things like ‘thy’ and ‘shan’t’.” Jihoon sits back down, more comfortably than last time, as if a heavy weight has been lifted from his shoulders; as if he’s been given back his wings. “Though, to be fair, I did focus on the 1900s when I studied, prior to my arrival. Language was more ornate at that time.”

“So it’s not just a case of everyone in heaven being really smart? Or like, speaking the way they do in the Bible.”

“No, just look at Jeonghan.” Jihoon shrugs, weakly pointing to the closed door of his room that they both recognize as a very lazy, and general representation of Jeonghan. “He speaks just like people from this century. Though occasionally he may be supercilious.”

“I don’t think he’s ‘cilious’ at all,” Soonyoung says, and before Jihoon can question if he understands what he’s just said he sits up with surprise. “Jeonghan’s an angel too?”

“Yeah, have you seen him?” Jihoon states, as if the whole ordeal were blatantly obvious. “I’m sure Heaven was both relieved and disheartened to see him go. He would eventually usurp the entirety of the governmental system if given the chance. He’s beguiling.”

“He won’t mind you telling me that he’s an angel? He won’t mind you telling me that you’re an angel?”

“Well,” Jihoon says, lips tugged into a smile that show his dimples, buzzing with jouissance. “Just your reaction now is enough to know you’re well worth it. Though, I’ll discuss it with him later just to be safe.”

“I want to be there when you do.” He states resolutely.

Jihoon, despite his slight panic, wonders what immensely kind act he’s committed to have someone like Soonyoung in his life. Someone so altruistic and courteous. Then he imagines what it’s going to be like when he tells Jeonghan. How he’ll more than likely laugh as loud as his thin frame and gentle voice will allow, give a few words that are, more or less, along the lines of “I told you so” and then never let Jihoon live in peace again.

“No, no, no.” Jihoon persists. “It’d be best if you weren’t.”

“Why? Does he think I’ll tell others? I can be talkative, but I can promise I won’t!”

“No, he—” Jihoon starts, then hesitates, “—he’s been expecting this since that day we all ate together.”

“Oh?” His hands, that had previously been waving around superfluously as he spoke, were now frozen, and after a minute or two of silence they settle on either side of himself. “Oh..! And why would that be? Why can’t I be there?”

“The bilious smirk on your face indicates you’ve already figured it out,” Jihoon mutters.

“Just verify my suspicions then.”

“If you’d hadn’t caused such an upheaval when you invaded our lunch and been so coquetry then he, who already knew of my infatuation, wouldn’t have been able to decode the current situation so easily,” Jihoon chastises, trepidation of embarrassment turning him hysterical. “Now he’s going to satirize me halfway back to Heaven!“

“Well,” he says, pushing himself forward, and with every word he inches toward Jihoon, “let me get this straight.” He gets this sort of aura about him, Jihoon notices, as if he’s set some spell in which their eyesight becomes mired and Jihoon has to hold his breath in fear of the moment being ruined. “Do all those fancy words mean I’m annoying or just unbearable?”

“Both,” Jihoon breathes into the centimeter of space between them and like the waves brushing against sand; a butterfly’s wings softly colliding with a petal as it flutters away; like the moonlight cordially shining upon clouds, their lips collide. Tender and languid in such a way that, rather than leaving Jihoon breathless, it fills his lungs with air. As if with the soft brush of lips, the simple touch of skin on skin, Soonyoung has returned Jihoon to himself.

“You’re glowing,” Soonyoung says, heel sitting. “Like, quite literally glowing.” He reaches a hand out, rubbing up and down Jihoon’s arm, then caressing his cheek, until he hesitantly grasps at his side, sending a wracking shiver up Jihoon’s spine.

“It must be the redamancy,” Jihoon doesn’t believe the words as they come out of his mouth and he blindly feels around the bed to look for one of their phones hidden beneath the blankets. He finds his own, instantaneously swiping to the camera and facing it towards himself and, surely enough, he’s glowing. Not as bright as it was gossiped but something similar to a nightlight. “I thought it was a myth.”

“What are you talking about? What does ‘redamancy’ mean?”

“In Heaven it’s said that if you—” Jihoon pauses, remembering that humans don’t throw around the word “love” like a basket of flowers. “—like someone, indescribably so, and they like you back, you’ll glow. After intimate forms of contact, of course.”

“So, since you like me and I like you—an indescribable amount, as you put it—you’re going to glow when we kiss?”

Jihoon nods, watching his radiation fade slowly as they speak. “I’d suggest you refrain from doing so in public, at least for a while. In my years of being in heaven I’d never actually witnessed it but it was said to be fugacious.” he sets the phone down, frightened that the silence means Soonyoung is aghast from their recent discovery.

“You shine through your clothes from just that little kiss?” He leans forward once more, holding Jihoon by the nape as he continuously pecks his face, even—much to Jihoon’s pleasure—leaving a few silent ones on his neck. “Your ears are so red you’re glowing pink!” Soonyoung howls, immensely satisfied with how speechless and shining he’s left him.

Jihoon pushes him away in embarrassment and wakes Soonyoung’s laptop so they can get back to the project.

#

On the last day of the semester Jihoon decides to take Jeonghan out at midnight to discuss he and Soonyoung’s relationship. He’d explained this to Soonyoung over the phone and, to his despair, they’d been met by a quite exultant head of blonde hair in the window of the 24-hour convenience store he decided on talking at.

Jihoon stomps over to him with an amused Jeonghan a few steps behind.

“What a coincidence!” Soonyoung exclaims.

Jihoon pinches his arm. “What are you doing here!” he whispers.

“Sudden 12 am craving?” Jeonghan asks.

Soonyoung nods. “Come sit with me back here, I’ve got two extra sandwiches.”

Jeonghan looks curiously to Jihoon, who shrugs.

“So. . .”

“Alright,” Jihoon begins. “You were right—as always.”

Jeonghan does exactly as Jihoon had predicted, he laughs heartily and reaches to give Soonyoung a delighted pat on the back. “Congratulations!”

Soonyoung grins shyly.

“I’ve also told him,” Jihoon says slowly.

Jeonghan blanches for a moment but he seems to soften when he sees how solemn Soonyoung grew at the remark. “Well, you’re your own person. Tell him what you please.”

“Yes, but—the story.”

Jeonghan laughs abruptly. “Of the thousand cases of angels coming to earth it’s happened just that once? If you had half a brain you’d realize it to be a scare tactic.”

“He’s only answered a few of my questions about it all.” Soonyoung interrupts. “I swear I won’t tell another soul your secret.”

Jeonghan smiles politely. “If he trusts you, I trust you.”

“Thank you,” he says softly. Upon seeing Jihoon go quiet, Soonyoung continues teasingly. “Can you explain to me the whole glowing thing a bit more? Jihoonie here seems to be hesitant.”

Jihoon turns crimson.

“What?” Jeonghan asks breathlessly. “What’s glowing?”

“He glows softly whenever I kiss him,” Soonyoung says dreamily. “It’s so cute.”

Jihoon forgets his scowl when Jeonghan looks to him with a disbelieving gasp.

“Show me,” Jeonghan commands.

Jihoon looks at him worriedly. “Why? It’s just—” he grows shy. “—it’s just because we like each other.”

“How long has it been happening for then?”

“It hasn’t stopped. . .” says Soonyoung.

“Go on, just kiss his cheek.”

Soonyoung leans over to kiss Jihoon’s reluctant cheek softly and the glow is instantaneous.

“Jihoon—it shouldn’t be to this extent.”

A rather glowing Jihoon looks to him bewildered. “What of it? It’ll wear off eventually. It’s hardly been a month.”

Jeonghan visibly starts. “A month!”

“Have you never seen it before?” Soonyoung inquires, oblivious to the situation at hand.

“You’ve passed any normal timeframe for usual dating. It’s⸺” he hesitates. “Is he an angel as well? Turn around and remove your shirt.”

“He has no wing scars on his back,” demurs Jihoon quickly.

Jeonghan nods, but abruptly grins. “Why have you seen his bare back?”

“Oh, shut up!”

Jeonghan thinks for a moment. “There’s the obvious—far-fetched—but not impossible reason.”

“Oh!” Jihoon exclaims, scared more than he is disbelieving. “Don’t be inane!”

“It’s a logical explanation, Jihoon.”

“It’s a child’s tale for the lonely and hopeless!”

“And that’s exactly what you are.”

Soonyoung grows impatient. “What’re you two talking about?”

Jihoon scoffs, not sure at what he should be incredulous. “Of all the things to suggest—all the logical possibilities⸺!”

“Don’t become too overwhelmed at the suggestion,” Jeonghan says. It’s unclear who it is intended to placate. “I think he’s found his—soulmate.”

The two look to each other with a nervous content, but avert their eyes timidly.

“You know,” Jeonghan continues. “That term has such a silly attachment to it—I think it’s lost its meaning. Let’s just say there’s something more to why he glows so bright when you two get intimate.”

“You’re insufferable,” Jihoon concludes.

“No, I’m right.”

It’s silent for a moment— “Maybe it’s portentous,” Jihoon says.

“Jihoon! That’s plain rude.”

Soonyoung collects himself momentarily. “What? What did he say?”

“He suggested it to be an omen—a bad one.”

Jihoon goes pale. “I—It isn’t—”

“Then what?” Soonyoung demands morosely.

“I—love you,” he answers penitently. 

The two, rapped so intensely in emotion remain silent as Jeonghan stands quietly and walks away. The reprobate angel has a complacent and rather priggish smile. 

Jihoon grows considerably confident and sincere once they are alone. “I love you.”

Soonyoung bursts into a peal of wondrous laughter. “I think this is the brightest you’ve glowed yet.” he goes red and stands suddenly to gather his shining lover into his arms. “I love you, too.”

Their lips meet sweetly and hereafter Jihoon does not glow.

**Author's Note:**

> this is one of the first aus i wrote and had half of it already done so I decided to take the initiative and finish it. it's from last october (hence the mention of halloween) so the writing style may be a bit different from my current... i hope the difference isn't too noticeable but the parts that seem pompous are over-confident, AP lit me attempting to make use of skill. i'm sorry. nothing is described in full which gives everything a bit of an elusive mist that i kind of enjoyed continuing though
> 
> also! idk if it was obvious but jihoon stopped glowing because they said ily to each other... im iffy about soulmates so you can disregard that if you'd like honestly i just thought it'd be cute and help things clear a bit heh. OK enough of me justifying this trainwreck, i've said so much good god. 
> 
> regardless...! i'm glad to finally get this off my chest, please dont take it too seriously.... and stay safe! n_n)b
> 
> (title is from The Selected Poems of M. T.; “We Shall Not Escape Hell,”. "... I'd like to live with you / In some small town, / in never-ending twilight / And the endless sound of bells.")


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